Mario, the portero, asked me if I wanted to go to a gay club with him tonight. At first I thought he was joking, but after asking me 5 or 6 times I had to take him seriously. I feel our relationship could be heading to the next level! I have brushed him off for now though. I told him next week would be better. I hope he doesn’t realise that I’m moving out on Thursday!

I’m currently staying in an apartment in Palermo Hollywood (this is it’s official name but someone had a go at me yesterday for saying it. Apparently it’s a bit pompous. He much prefers Palermo Viejo. Maybe that’s what I should go with) in Buenos Aires.

My roommate is a guy called Alaric. He’s from the US (though if you ask him where he’s from he’ll say New Mexico. I think he’s trying to hide his roots!). He spends all day in bed. Although to be fair I should write; he spends all day in his bed, with his girlfriend. Normally they have the door open so I get to see into their world. He works away on his laptop while she lies there. Sometime they close the door. I can only imagine what they get up to then. Scrabble maybe. It’s normally followed by a shower so they must be pretty heated games.

The best thing about living in an apartment here though is the portero, which is basically a janitor. It’s taken me a while to get used to kissing him every time I see him, but other than that this guy is an absolute gem. Every question I have he has an answer. He knows everything. And he fixes everything double quick. Only two days ago did we have a leaky tap. Problem was solved in about 10 minutes. He does keep insisting I need to strengthen up though, mainly through buying polenta. I think maybe he’s on the polenta marketing board or something.

It’s impossible to ignore the portero’s advice though and so I have bought polenta. No immediate effect yet but I am hopeful.

(Oh yeah, and days of grapes and honey. This is the Spanish version of Days of Milk and Honey. I think maybe they’re forgetting the versatility of milk. Although thinking about this you can make wine out of grapes. You can’t make alcohol out of milk and it does go a bit funny after a few days (unless you have a magical Ecoworks fridge) so I might have to rethink this. Umm…)

I feel a little like Bobby Brown first thing in the morning; bewildered, confused, wondering what´s taking Whitney so long with those bleeding eggs.

I´m not sure I was ready for the city just yet. Wishing I could get out of bed, make my way to the porch, lie in a hammock and listen to the trees while occasional cats come by to say hello, with Daniela making some amazing lunch in the kitchen which she is about to tell me is ready.

I think I had it pretty cushy in that house of the forest. I may just have to go back there at some point.

Okay, so it’s not gonna be possible to forget Iguazu falls in a hurry. Those are some big waterfalls!

The falls!

But there´s one other thing that sticks in my mind. This is the sight of a man flicking a cigarette into Rio Iguazu. He didn’t notice that I had seem him do this. His wife did and I think from the way her eyes widened before shirkily placing themselves back in her husband’s glance, she could see the rage that was coming over my face.

On the main viewpoint of the waterfalls you can look down and see a dozen plastic bottles nestled in amongst the rocks.

For some reason I assumed there would be more awareness of pollution and the environment in Brazil, after all it is their rainforest that is being chopped down for hamburgers.

My thinking was already heading in this direction though, due to the number of bags I was being given at the super market. Checkout girls looked on in amazement if I refused one. “Do you not want a bag?” “No”, “Are you sure?” “Yes”, “So you don’t want a bag then?” “No” And almost every item gets its own bag. Fruit goes in one bag, drinks in another, cold drinks in another still. Bar of soap? Gets its own bag.

On entering Parque Nacional da Iguazu, there are signs everywhere reading ‘UNESCO World Heritage Site’, ‘Vote for the New Seven Wonders of the World’, ‘Protect the Environment’. How can someone just throw a cigarette into the river? I just find the whole thing baffling.

Maybe I'm allergic

Next: I am on my way to Buenos Aires in a Super Cama. I have fully reclinable capabilities. And I have just been served warm beef and potatoes. This really is luxury.

Hold on, I almost forgot to talk about the beaches. They are surely the best thing about Florianopolis. There’s 42 of them in total. 22 of which have waves good enough for surfing. Some of these beaches are on the main roads, some are hidden away behind mountains begging to be trekked to. Everyone I went to was a complete sauna, with hot stones and everything.

The best beach by far is Praia da Lagoinha do Leste. Take a bus to Armação. 10 minutes walk south from Praia da Armação is Praia do Matadeiro. A further 2 hours walk from Matadeiro is Lagoinha do Leste. The walk has to be one of the best I have ever done. There are so many false corners, putting your heart in your mouth as you know there is going to be a beautiful beach coming soon. After 3 false corners, the beach opens up. A tasty mile of open beach with clear blue waters, bunched in by green mountains on all sides. I never wanted to get in the ocean so much.

Lagoinha do Leste

Praia Brava is another of my favourite beaches. Only problem was the amount of handbags around me. I think it must have been clearing out day at the old people’s home.

Praia Brava

I thought this photo looked a little bit like the cover of On The Beach. Now I´m not so sure.

Look, Neil Young!

Who´s this then?

Okay, so what other beaches were there.

Praia do Pantano do Sul & Praia da Solidão – amazingly quiet beaches, perfect for strumming a few chords in the afternoon or having a nap

Praia do Saquinho – about 2 rocks on this beach. One of which had some young couple perched a top. I think this is the place for an evening snack

Praia de Naufragados – I never reached Naufragados. I tried to trek but gave up when the heat got to me and I had ran out of water. One day I will find you Naufragados!!!

Praia da Joaquina & Praia Mole – perfect surfing beaches. Get your wetsuit on though cause it´s a bit chilly out there. Kinda like skegness, but without the constant stream of baby buggies

Praia da Barra da Lagoa – crowded beach, full of surfers but no waves. On a good day probably worth getting the board out. Otherwise just sit and watch the girls go by

It is my 10th day in Floripa, and my final day. It´s now time to do my best Cain impersonation and get the hell outta here. These are the places I stayed:

Pousada do Marujo, Barra da Lagoa – 3 days of nothing. Essential.

Albergue do Pirata, Costa de Dentro – chilled out surfer dudes. Churrasco with Bavarians. Some of the most peaceful beaches on the island

Geziel e Paula, Trinidade (Couchsurfing.com) – time to explore. Made it my mission to trek to the most far out beaches in the island and succeeded. I also got expertly fed by Paula and by Geziel´s mum, who was having a cataracts operation but used her one eye perfectly to guide food in my direction

Murilo and the house of the forest (Globalfreeloaders.com) – it´s a house. It´s in the forest. There is a never ending supply of cats and a tiny bassett hound. This place was almost perfect. The only thing preventing perfection: I never did get to try out that triangle.

Okay, so one recommendation. Don’t try to find the house of the forest at night.

Maybe I was let down by the directions. It was 3 houses and a path to nothingness before I got an affirmative “yes, this is the house of Murilo.” In truth, once I reached it I knew it was going to be the one. The lights emanating an orange glow off the adobe brick and wooden frames within, dreamcatchers strewn across the porch with an unruly red leather armchair taking centre piece.

Tonight I need to relax, one of the housemates is ill. Things should be different tomorrow though. It’s jam night. I´ve already got my eye on the triangle.

The migraine has subsided! For my last 2 weeks in England and week in Rio and Sao Paulo I have had one brutalising headache. The constant need to do things, the constant party and the struggle for sleep had all played their part in this, but finally it has gone.

The main contributing factor to the end of this migraine: doing absolutely nothing. For the past three days I have done nothing other than sleep, cook, eat and walk. My only spot of surfing leaves me looking like the japanese flag as my sun tan lotion application skills truly fail to hit the spot.

Okay, so I only stayed in Saõ Paulo for a night and a day, but certainly managed to do quite a bit in this time. Stayed with Ney and his family in Tiradentes, near the center. Ney was a massive football fan so got to talk to him for hours about this, mainly about the impact of Ronaldo. He taught me how to make some pretty darn good caipirinhas. Which for anyone who has ever tasted one of Sambo’s caipirinhas, only uses 2 limes, not about 1 million lemons. Anyway, so the next day we went to both the Pinoteca museum and gallery. Gallery itself was rather good. Interesting stuff from Daniel Sinise (like Kevin McCloud on spacedust) and Fabricio Lopez (huge prints made from carved wood stencils). The museum was mainly centred around the many ways in which the Brazilian dissidents were punished during the dictatorship. Plenty of false imprisonments and unnecessary torture. Crazy to think this only finished in 1985. After that it was off to the fresh fruit market and a bit of daytime drinking before packing my bags.

Flats soon to be demolished and replaced by fancy apartments

I think it’s fair to say Saõ Paulo isn’t my kind of city. They are currently going through some serious cleansing (which they seem to be doing effectively, as opposed to Rio), trying to eradicate the working class from the center by building alternative accommodation, their previous homes being bulldozed, no doubt soon to be replaced by trendy high rises. It all results in something a little sterile, and expensive. There’s no doubt a hell of a lot more to see though. It is the biggest city in South America after all. Don’t know if I’ll be making my way back there anytime soon though.

About

On The Road to Find Out is a blog all about South America which I started in March 2009 upon landing in Rio de Janeiro, and which includes stories from my travels in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.

As well as these travel stories, you will hopefully also get to understand my obsessions with food, football and music, all of which go hand-in-hand with travelling around South America, on a journey which has no end in sight yet.